How things look through an Oregonian's eyes

November 29, 2012

I've got a great plan for handling the fiscal cliff crisis that is causing massive headaches for both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

I'm calling it "Chill" in honor of the Sirius satellite music channel I was listening to as the plan came to mind while I was driving home from downtown Salem tonight. Appropriate, because if there's anything our country needs right now, it's a chilling of the feverish right-left political arguing.

Apparently Republicans haven't gotten the news that President Obama was resoundingly re-elected after campaigning on promises to raise taxes on the wealthy and preserve social programs. House leader John Boehner is frustrated that the Dems aren't caving on those promises.

Boehner has his own internal problems, since most Republican members of Congress have signed a Grover Norquist pledge to never, ever raise taxes on anybody. Yet taxes on everybody are going to go up next year if nothing is done because that's how George Bush and the GOP planned it when the Bush tax cuts were passed.

They had an expiration date. And that date is fast approaching. Yet bipartisan agreement on fiscal cliff deficit reduction seems discouragingly far away.

So my Venti Starbucks Nonfat Vanilla Latte fueled brain came up with a brilliant idea to let both sides have their cake and eat it too. Then, see whether the Democrat or Republican approaches create economic indigestion or a pleasantly balanced budget.

My dream is to have a Red State - Blue State competition. Americans love sports. Why not select two teams of states which represent the most avid players on both sides? West Coast and Northeast versus Deep South and Lower Midwest, say.

Many people in those Red states have been clamoring to secede from the Union after Obama's re-election. They want to go their own way. Well, my Chill Plan allows that -- to a certain extent. Likewise, Blue staters don't want their progressive path forward to be blocked by conservative "no, no, no!" cries in Congress.

OK. Let's conduct an experiment.

Instead of endlessly arguing about which party has the best policy prescriptions for what ails the federal budget, let's let those Red and Blue states carry out different approaches to deficit reduction. Which would be a piece of the deficit reduction pie, not the whole thing.

Areas like military spending and certain universal domestic programs (can't have FAA staff in only certain airports, for example, or NWS weather forecasts for only part of the country) wouldn't be part of the Red-Blue competition.

The focus would be on tax revenues and entitlement program spending.

Republicans don't want tax rates to go up. They believe increased revenues can come from unspecified tax reform efforts. Romney even believed that rates could go down, and federal revenues could go up. Magical thinking, in my opinion, but if the Red Team states want to call that play, go for it.

Social Security would be off limits in my Chill Plan. Medicare and Medicaid wouldn't be. Republicans want to voucher'ize Medicare so seniors would have a fixed amount to buy either private insurance or a government plan. Medicaid would be cut substantially and made into a block grant program to states.

Let's allow Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, et. al. to keep the Bush tax cuts for wealthy people living in their states. Let's allow them to alter the federal tax code on deductions/tax expenditures. Let's allow them to fiddle with Medicare and Medicaid for enrollees who live in the Red Team states.

On the other side, Democrats want higher taxes on the wealthy, especially on those making over $1 million a year. They want to invest in infrastructure spending and other government programs to stimulate the economy.

Dems expect the Affordable Care Act to lessen the rate of growth in Medicare/Medicaid costs. They'd rather fix inefficiences and excesses in the health care system than reduce benefits to enrollees. So let's let California, Washington, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, and other states on the Blue Team carry out a progressive vision of deficit reduction.

It'd be a fascinating social experiment. With some clear rules. Each team would have to meet a defined target for reducing federal expenditures. Say this was $2 trillion over 10 years. Each state "player" on the Red and Blue teams would have a proportionate slice of the deficit reduction pie it had to come up with.

I'd love to see how this game played out. Being a progressive, I expect that people in the Red Team states would be unpleasantly surprised at what happens when the wealthy get even more, and seniors/poor people get even less.

But, hey, if that's what they want, so be it. Us avid members of the Blue Team (Oregon went solidly for Obama) would be moving ahead with our own deficit reduction strategy: raising taxes on the rich, investing in the future, providing essential health services to every citizen.

My prediction is that the Blue Team would kick the Red Team's economic ass. Surprises might happen, though. Some right-wing ideas might turn out to work better than Democrats expect. Ditto for left-wing ideas that shock conservatives when they succeed.

There's a lot of wrinkles to iron out in my Chill Plan. I'd need quite a few more Venti Lattes to accomplish that. Since I don't rule the world (sadly), I won't be heading to Starbucks for that brain fuel.

I just like the notion of setting political trash-talking aside and seeing which party's economic policies actually play better. That's tough to find out in our current political situation, where Republicans can block Democratic initiatives because they control the House and incessantly engage in Senate filibusters.

Why not let each side do its own thing in the most extreme Red and Blue states? Then see who comes out the winner. Won't happen. But I can dream...

November 28, 2012

Right now I'm trying my best to not listen to an irritating video about the All-American importance of jury duty, a video I've ignored before previous times I've been called as a juror.

It's being played here in the jury assembly room on the 5th floor of the Marion County (Oregon) Courthouse. One purpose of the video is to make me and my fellow morose potential jurors feel better about being forced to take time off of work, or whatever our usual life consists of, and do something we don't want to do.

Amazingly, I just heard a woman on the video say "It can be disappointing if you're not picked to be a juror."

Are you freaking kidding? I will be overjoyed if I can get out of jury duty today. I have zero interest in being a juror. And I'm pretty damn sure that my feelings are shared by most of the other people in this room.

Therein lies my distaste for jury duty.

It's absurd to force people to perform a service they don't want to do. How would you like to be operated on by a surgeon who doesn't want to be in the operating room, who is utterly uninterested in performing the procedure that you need to preserve your health, or even life?

The United States used to have a military draft. People were forced to serve. Now we have a volunteer military. Works much better. The quality of our fighting forces has gone up because they want to be a soidier, sailor, or whatever.

I don't want to be a juror. My expectation is that I'd be a lousy juror. My sole goal at this moment is to be excused from jury duty somehow or other. (Maybe the trial won't happen because of a last minute plea bargain or settlement.)

I'm not the person who I'd want to be in the juror box if I was on trial. So this destroys the oft-heard notion that the current jury system is founded on we are entitled to a jury of our peers.

Sure, I can agree with that. But the "peers" I want deciding my legal fate are akin to me in my best moments, not my worst. Most days I'm reasonable, in a good mood, willing to listen to both sides of an argument.

Today, like every day I've been called for jury duty, I'm not. I'm bummed at being here in the juror assembly room, doing nothing at 9 am after getting up at 6 am, killing time by blogging about how much I don't want to be here.

I have a cold. I didn't sleep well last night. I'm living on Sudogest and cough drops.

Believe me, I'm not in the frame of mind that I'd want someone to have if they were faced with making an important decision. If we get to the point that an attorney questions me, I won't be shy to say just that. This isn't a ploy to get out of jury duty, though that's my goal.

It's the truth.

If forced jury duty is such a great idea, why don't we conscript uneducated people to teach periodically in overcrowded classrooms? Why don't we periodically require atheists to attend a church on Sunday and preach to the faithful? Why don't we periodically require vegetarians to prepare meat dishes in prisons?

Here's an answer: they'd do a crappy job. Forcing people to do something they don't want to do almost always is a recipe for poor performance.

Permanent panels of judges manage to render verdicts competently. So why can't we have permanent juries made up of citizens selected for their intelligence, fairness, and willingness to listen to boring testimony for long hours?

Call me an elitist, but I'd just as soon not have a "jury of my peers" if that means having average Americans decide my case. Some of the people with me in the jury assembly room looked to have their wits about them, but not all.

Getting there right on time and then waiting for three hours. Uncomfortable chairs. Having to fill out forms that ask personal questions. Outdated reading material. Other people being called while you sit…and sit…and sit. Why, I found that jury duty is just like going to the doctor. Except you go to the doctor because you have a problem that needs to be fixed.

With jury duty, the problem is that you are there and you want to be somewhere else. At least, this seemed to be the case with all of my fellow jury duty selectees this morning, and it certainly was with me. Notwithstanding the annoyingly cheery video that we were shown about the patriotic nature of jury duty, how our presence was assuring that the Republic Would Stand, blah, blah, blah, the mood in the jury assembly room for those three hours was seriously sullen.

I'm following this issue because it provides a fascinating look into the reality-denying right-wing brain. It's been obvious for quite a while that Ambassador Rice was simply conveying talking points prepared by United States intelligence agencies.

Graham blathered on about some other aspect of the Benghazi attack. Graham refused to admit that his accusations about Rice were wrong. Reality had won, yet Senator Graham couldn't bring himself to admit it.

Here's some news and opinion articles I've been collecting that show how wrong the Republicans have been.

US National Intelligence authorities, in consultation with the CIA, decided to remove the terms "attack", "al-Qaeda" and "terrorism" from unclassified guidance provided to the Obama administration several days after militants attacked the US mission in Benghazi, a senior official says.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, relied on the so-called talking points when she appeared on several Sunday TV talk shows five days after the September 11 attacks in eastern Libya.

Regardless, this theory gained steam when David Petraeus said at a closed hearing last week that although the C.I.A. thought right away that Al Qaeda was responsible, specific references to terrorism were removed from public talking points after an interagency review.

Zounds! thought the conspiracists. The White House must have ordered this heinous deletion!

The theory lost steam when CBS and CNN reported that, actually, the Director of National Intelligence was behind the change, and the White House made no substantial edits.

“When discussing the attacks against our facilities in Benghazi, I relied solely and squarely on the information provided to me by the intelligence community,” Rice told reporters yesterday in New York. “I made clear that the information was preliminary and that our investigations would give us the definitive answers.”

Though investigations are not complete, what has emerged so far suggests that the attack was staged by local jihadists, not ordered by the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. Officials believe that it was inspired in part by demonstrations that took place that day in Cairo. That is not so far from Ms. Rice’s explanation that “this began as a spontaneous . . . response to what transpired in Cairo.”

Republicans claim that Ms. Rice “propagated a falsehood” that the attacks were connected to an anti-Islam YouTube video. How then to explain the contemporaneous reports from Western news organizations quoting people at the burning consulate saying that they were angry about the video?

November 23, 2012

So today Laurel and I were thrilled to see Serena and Zu Zu prominently displayed at the top of page 6D in the Salem Statesman Journal. (Just five pages from page 1! And three sections from section A!)

Naturally you'll want to click on the image to enlarge our dogs closer to full size. And if you want to preserve the PetClick in another electronic form to become part of your Important Historical Archives, here's the PDF file.Download Pet Click Statesman Journal

The only disturbing aspect of this PetClick event is that I'd sent in a different photo to the Statesman Journal shortly before Laurel submitted this photo.

PetClick loves Laurel more than me! I'm devastated.

I'd gotten an email from PetClick central saying that on Friday, the 23rd, my photo could either be seen in the PetClick online archives (bad) or in the paper version of the Statesman Journal (good).

Optimist that I am, naturally I figured that today I'd be looking at my photo in the "real" newspaper. Except, my wife beat me out, pushing me into the online archives. I think... I couldn't even find my photo online.

Here it is, my loser photo.

I figure that PetClick means what it says. You're supposed to submit photos of your pets, not of people. So maybe having Laurel in the photo was what made me a loser.

Couldn't be my marvelous photographic iPhone skills, or the astounding cuteness of the "small dog parked under large dog" pose.

Over in the New York Times TImothy Egan makes some excellent arguments in favor of a federal hands-off approach to the marijuana legalization initiatives that passed in Colorado and Washington a few weeks ago.

Usually Republicans and other conservatives look down on NY Times opinion pieces, but "Give Pot a Chance" should appeal to people all across the political spectrum.

Social revolutions in a democracy, especially ones that begin with voters, should not be lightly dismissed. Forget all the lame jokes about Cheetos and Cheech and Chong. In the two-and-a-half weeks since a pair of progressive Western states sent a message that arresting 853,000 people a year for marijuana offenses is an insult to a country built on individual freedom, a whiff of positive, even monumental change is in the air.

Right on, brother.

Here in Oregon our voters turned down Measure 80, an attempt to legalize marijuana that was considerably looser (less regulation, fewer limits on personal use) than what passed in the other states. However, it still got 47% of the vote, even with virtually zero money put into campaigning for it.

Like Egan said, criminalizing marijuana use, which is much less harmful or dangerous than alcohol and many legal substances, is an affront to individual freedom. So the don't tread on me side of conservatism, a large bunch of Americans, should oppose the DEA swooping in and asserting their right to keep marijuana illegal under federal law.

On the liberal side, support for letting Colorado and Washington do their thing will be equally strong or stronger. Personally, I'll be deeply irked at Obama if he fails to allow states to experiment with legalizing marijuana. Which hopefully will include Oregon soon.

If Obama did that, l'd still support his second term agenda. But when those entreaties come in from Obama for America asking me to email, phone, facebook, twitter, donate, or whatever for some policy cause, I'll keep in mind Obama's stance on marijuana.

It's tough to think of any good reasons to continue on with what we're doing now. Egan makes that clear.

In two years through 2011, more than 2,200 serious illnesses, including 33 fatalities, were reported by consumers of nutritional supplements. Federal officials have received reports of 13 deaths and 92 serious medical events from Five Hour Energy. And how many people died of marijuana ingestion?

Of course, just because well-marketed, potentially hazardous potions are legal is no argument to bring pot onto retail shelves. But it’s hard to make a case for fairness when one person’s method of relaxation is cause for arrest while another’s lands him on a Monday night football ad.

...Already, 18 states and the District of Columbia allow medical use of marijuana. This chaotic and unregulated system has resulted in price-gouging, phony prescriptions and outright scams. No wonder the pot dispensaries have opposed legalization — it could put them out of business.

...Washington State officials estimate that taxation and regulation of licensed marijuana retail stores will generate $532 million in new revenue every year. Expand that number nationwide, and then also add into the mix all the wasted billions now spent investigating and prosecuting marijuana cases.

...Obama is uniquely suited to make the argument for change. On this issue, he’ll have support from the libertarian right and the humanitarian left. The question is not the backing — it’s whether the president will have the backbone.

November 21, 2012

It pains me to think about the 2016 presidential election, since we're just a few weeks past the 2012 election -- which felt like it went on for years (because it did).

But pundits who got the Obama-Romney victor wrong are now turning their attention to getting likely nominees for 2016 wrong. Which includes Florida Senator Marco Rubio on the Republican side.

This makes Rubio's recent comments about the age of the Earth even more disturbing. In my ever-optimistic mind, I've been hoping that after the G.O.P.'s solid defeat in the 2012 election, Republicans would realize that they need to become more moderate and reality-embracing.

No more denial of the reality of global warming. No more denial about the reality of evolution. No more denial about the lack of evidence for trickle-down economics and tax cuts creating more revenue.

Unfortunately, Rubio shows this hasn't started to happen.

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?

Marco Rubio: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

Wow. One of the great mysteries? No, only to religious fundamentalists and science deniers. The age of the Earth is quite precisely known: 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years.

Uhh, Sen. Rubio, may not be a scientist but he is a member of the Senate’s Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee. And presumably because he’s from Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center, Rubio is actually on the Science and Space Subcommittee (!) which “has responsibility for science, engineering, and technology research and development and policy; calibration and measurement standards; and civilian aeronautical and space science and policy.”

Even more worrying, yet not all that surprising, is that each of the Republicans currently being talked about as 2016 presidential candidate material is anti-science to a disturbing degree. The good news is that their lack of contact with reality means they'll likely fare as well as science-denying Romney did.

Consider this, members of the longshore workers and other unions at the Port of Portland who are engaged in what can only be described as "antics" which threaten the viability of shipping in this area and even the entire Pacific Northwest:

When a proud progressive like me, who supports unions, who was strongly against Republican efforts in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere to cripple unions, who dislikes corporate domination of our nation's economy, reads about what is happening at the Port of Portland and thinks "Those unions are acting absurdly," maybe it's time to calm down and stop auditioning for parts in the Jimmy Hoffa Story.

In Wisconsin it was clear that Governor Scott Walker wanted to destroy public employee unions. If he couldn't kill them entirely, his goal was to make them as lifeless as possible. Fighting back made sense. But I can't figure out why unions are causing so much trouble at the Port of Portland.

A major issue is whether members of one union, longshore workers, handle refrigerated containers rather than members of another union, electricians. Wow, who does two jobs? In two words, who cares? Nobody except unions who are into this "inside baseball" stuff.

And now the longshore workers union is pissing off a major shipping company by incessantly billing them every time an electrician deals with a refrigerated container rather than a longshoreman, even though the shipping company has no control over who does the work.

There's a time to be tough and confrontational. And there's a time to be moderate and conciliatory. It depends on the situation. Sure seems to me like the Port of Portland unions should cool it rather than persist in heating things up.

November 19, 2012

There was a lot not to like in how the Oregon football team lost last Saturday to Stanford. Aaron Fentress of the Portland Oregonian nailed the awesome awfulness of the loss in a story today.

Saturday's defeat ranks as one of the most disappointing in the program's history. All but gone are the Ducks' national title hopes. Claiming a fourth consecutive Pac-12 title will require help from others. A potential fourth consecutive trip to a BCS bowl game could dissolve into a trip to the Holiday Bowl.

...On the field, Oregon looked dreadful on Saturday. Its running game was stuffed. The passing game was rough. Oregon has made field-goal kicking a form of witchcraft the Ducks can't quite figure out.

Blend all of that together and you have arguably the most disappointing loss in program history.

l'll drink to that last statement. Much more than usual.

I'm typically a one-glass-of-red-wine guy. But after finishing watching a recording of the Oregon-Stanford game late Saturday night, I felt like becoming an alcoholic for a while so I could drown my memories of the many horrific moments that added up to an enormously frustrating loss.

Here's the image that sticks in the mind the most. Meaning, the worst. Watch the first 45 seconds of this video.

De'Anthony Thomas running ahead of quarterback Marcus Mariota as Mariota approached the Stanford end zone after a scintillating 77 yard gain. Mariota was tackled at the 15 yard line by a defender who ran up on him from behind.

An untouched defender, because Thomas was blissfully looking at the end zone from in front of Mariota and never noticed the Stanford player. Amazingly, after the game Thomas said:

“I was just running and trying to be a lead blocker,” Thomas said. “I didn’t even see the guy behind (Mariota).

“I just thought he was already out there (in the clear) and he was running to score a touchdown.”

Now, I've never played competitive football. However, I'm pretty damn sure about this: if Thomas is the lead blocker, and he's twenty yards from the end zone, not seeing any Stanford player in front of him to block, maybe he should consider the possibility that all of the Stanford players are behind him, and he should look around to see if Mariota needs some blocking help in that direction.

That play was a game changer. Oregon ended up with zero points after Mariota was tackled at the 15 yard line. The Ducks lost in overtime by three points.

It's often said that football, like other sports, is a game of inches. I get that.

An Oregon field goal bounced off a goal post. A controversial Stanford touchdown came down to a replay review of a reception that was right on the borderline between "complete" and "incomplete." In overtime a Duck defender reached out for a fumble and barely missed grabbing it, which would have stopped the Stanford series that ended with the game-winning field goal.

But Thomas' play on the Mariota run was much more disturbing.

It reflected a cluelessness about basic football technique which someone with Thomas' talent and experience should have well in hand. If your quarterback is on his way to a touchdown, make sure you block any defenders trying to tackle him.

Don't focus mindlessly on the goal line, seemingly looking forward to the high five's and chest bumps that you and Mariota are going to exchange in the end zone on national TV.

I could be wrong, but Thomas strikes me as me as someone who isn't big on self-examination or self-criticism. He's got a whatever, dude attitude and an air of uncaring coolness that rubbed my Duck fan'ness the wrong way.

I wanted to put genuine profanity in the title of this post. But my sense of cyberspace propriety stopped me. Until now...

Fuck you, DirecTV! Fuck you, Pac 12 Network!

May you and your progeny (assuming corporations have progeny, but aren't they people too?) endure eternal torture in whatever hell is reserved for heartless, greedy, uncaring bastards who put their own selfish interest above the needs of others.

Like me.

I've been annoyed with DirecTV for several months. Virtually every other "cable" provider has worked out an agreement with the Pac 12 Network. But not DirecTV. So I've been missing Oregon and Oregon State football games I wanted to see.

In addition, the vast majority of games, and those with the most conference or national title implications, will instead be televised by the ESPN family of networks and ABC Sports, FOX Sports and FSN, FX, CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network, NBC Sport and NBC Sports Network, and several other regional services, all of which are available on DIRECTV.

Oh, really? You liars!!!

If Oregon doesn't beat Oregon State this Saturday, it's already-slim national championship hopes will be flushed completely down the BCS toilet. Ditto for its conference title hope, since Oregon has to win and Stanford has to lose this weekend for that to happen.

I need to be temporarily adopted by a Comcast customer. From noon to four pm this Saturday. I've had all of my shots. I'm housetrained. I don't bite (anyone but DirecTV and Pac 12 Network employees). I'm not finicky (just put some chips and dip in my bowl).

Or I guess I could find a sports bar. I don't drink much, but I could make an exception this Saturday. That drunk screaming Fuck you, DirecTV! at the television would be me.

I'll be happy with whoever wins the football game. But DirecTV is the big loser regardless. Football fans in Oregon are going to remember your uncaring mendacity for a long, long time.

November 17, 2012

After their very real election losses -- President, Senate seats, House seats -- you'd think reality-denying Republicans (who imagined Romney would be victorious despite all the polling evidence to the contrary) would have learned that facts matter.

But, nope. They're up to their old tricks, hoping that a lie told over and over on Fox News and elsewhere somehow will transform into truth.

The current Lie of the Moment is that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who is being talked about as a replacement for Secretary of State Clinton, deceived Americans when she described the Benghazi attacks soon after they happened.

It seemed obvious at the time that she was speaking from intelligence agency talking points, not making stuff up out of her own head like Republicans do.

Indeed, now we know that is what happened. Check out the links for more detail.

November 15, 2012

"Majority rules." Makes sense to me. I can live with that. In both the House and the Senate.

Do away with the Senate's stupid filibuster custom where 41 out of 100 Senators have veto power over what legislation will be passed by Congress, and whether Presidential nominations of administration officials and judges will be confirmed.

Republican abuse of the filibuster has led to Senate gridlock. Then Republicans complain that the Obama administration can't get anything through the Senate. This hypocritical insanity has to end.

There's a lot to like about a parliamentary system of government.

An election is held. A majority of those elected to parliament then choose a prime minister. So the leader of the country and a majority of the parliament are on the same political wavelength. They can propose and carry out policies without a minority blocking them.

If the electorate likes what they do, they get re-elected. If their policies are rejected, so is the parliament majority, and hence the prime minister. This guarantees accountability. A political party (or coalition) gets an opportunity to implement its policies.

Doing away with the filibuster entirely would bring the United States closer to this sort of desirable accountability. In our current political situation, we have a Democratic president and a 55-45 Democratic majority (coalition, really, with 53 Dems and 2 others) in the Senate.

Without the filibuster, a Democratic initiative could be passed by the Senate that would be signed by Obama if it also passed the House. Voters would know whose fault it was if the bill didn't become law: the Republican majority in the House.

This would make things a lot clearer.

At present, it drives me nuts to see a newspaper headline that says "Such and such bill failed to pass the Senate." Actually, it did, say by a 57-43 vote. But because of the stupid filibuster, the bill didn't get the 61 super-majority votes needed to pass almost everything now that the GOP has become the Party of No.

So unless citizens follow the dysfunctional Senate machinations closely, they get the impression that Democrats can't pass important legislation or confirm crucial nominations. In truth, the Dems would, if there was majority rule in the Senate.

Sadly, almost certainly this won't happen next year. But filibuster reform finally is being seriously talked about.

His proposal is a lot better than doing nothing, though like I said above, "nothing" is the filibuster option I'd prefer. Still, requiring Senators to actually stand on the Senate floor and talk, talk, talk would draw attention to their obstructionism and make them suffer some to keep up a filibuster.

The proposal made by Mr. Udall and Mr. Merkley last year, which we strongly supported, would have preserved the filibuster but made it much harder to use. Rather than allow a single senator to raise an objection that triggered a 60-vote requirement, their plan would require 10 signatures to start a filibuster and would then force an increasingly large group of members to speak continuously on the floor to keep it going. Senators could not hide in cloakrooms but would have to face the public on camera to hold up a judge’s confirmation, a budget resolution or a bill.

But if after reform filibustering still holds up Senate business excessively, which after all is the peoples' business, Senate rules should be tightened to further weaken the filibuster. Hopefully the damn thing will go away entirely before long.

The people have spoken. Voters have passed Initiative 502 and beginning December 6th, it is not a violation of state law for adults over 21 years old to possess up to an ounce of marijuana (or 16 ounces of solid marijuana-infused product, like cookies, or 72 ounces of infused liquid, like oil) for personal use. The initiative establishes a one-year period for the state to develop rules and a licensing system for the marijuana production and sale.

...Can I legally carry around an ounce of marijuana?

According to the recently passed initiative, beginning December 6th, adults over the age of 21 will be able to carry up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use. Please note that the initiative says it “is unlawful to open a package containing marijuana…in view of the general public,” so there’s that. Also, you probably shouldn’t bring pot with you to the federal courthouse (or any other federal property).

...Will police officers be able to smoke marijuana?

As of right now, no. This is still a very complicated issue.

...What happens if I get pulled over and I’m sober, but an officer or his K9 buddy smells the ounce of Super Skunk I’ve got in my trunk?

Under state law, officers have to develop probable cause to search a closed or locked container. Each case stands on its own, but the smell of pot alone will not be reason to search a vehicle. If officers have information that you’re trafficking, producing or delivering marijuana in violation of state law, they can get a warrant to search your vehicle.

SPD seized a bunch of my marijuana before I-502 passed. Can I have it back?

No.

...December 6th seems like a really long ways away. What happens if I get caught with marijuana before then?

Hold your breath. Your case will be processed under current state law. However, there is already a city ordinance making marijuana enforcement the lowest law enforcement priority.

The guide ends with a You Tube video. Whoever wrote this piece for the Seattle Police Department deserves a promotion.

Following the recent revelation that former CIA director David Petraeus conducted a protracted extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, sources confirmed today that the far-reaching scandal has widened to reveal that mankind, otherwise known as the species Homo sapiens, has been engaging in sexual intercourse for the past 200,000 years.

“While the situation appeared at first to be limited to this one sexual relationship between Gen. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell, we see now that it is far more extensive than we had initially believed,” said an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation. “Indeed, evidence shows Gen. Petraeus is, in fact, just one of literally billions of human beings who we now believe have on numerous occasions engaged in sexual intercourse over the last several hundred millennia.”

...“The scope of this scandal is simply astonishing—there is currently enough evidence to implicate individuals from every part of the world, even dating back before the creation of modern international states,” said one source close to the investigation, adding that the FBI has collected millions of first-person accounts of people who have either had sex themselves or witnessed others performing sexual acts. “There are even thousands of hours of video evidence that cyber-security experts in D.C. and Langley have managed to find on the Internet.”

“The real question is, ‘Who knew about this? And for how long?’” the anonymous source added.

I've used my new laptop, which replaced a three year old 13 inch MacBook Pro, for about ten days. That's long enough to be confident in my two word review:

Love it!

Now, I've been reading quite a few reviews of the 13 inch retina MacBook Pro from computer geeks who usually have a different impression. They like the new incarnation of the much beloved 13 inch MacBook Pro, yet have two serious standard criticisms.

Too expensive.Lacks powerful graphics card.

Their typical erroneous conclusion is that it makes more sense to pay a few hundred dollars more and get the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro, which not only has a bigger screen, but considerably more processing power.

I say "erroneous," because the 13 inch'er is aimed at normal computer users. Like me. And I love it.

True, most reviews of the 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro do say just that: if you're not a gamer or someone who regularly edits complex videos, the smaller retina laptop will suit you just fine. But those words come after tables showing how the 13 inch machine takes longer to process a hour long movie, can't play Wizards of Warcraft (or whatever the newest game craze is) at warp speed, and such.

To which I reply, in another pithy two words:

Who cares?

I surf the web. I edit short videos and photos, of which I have over a thousand in iPhoto. I blog. I send and receive many emails. I watch DVD's, write different kinds of stuff in Pages, keep track of my contacts, make appointments, maintain to-do lists.

In short, I'm like the vast majority of computer users, albeit retired from the working world. In three years my old 13 inch MacBook Pro did everything I needed it to do.

My new 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro just does all that way faster and more elegantly. I adore the retina display. It grows on me the more I feast my eyes on it. As many others have noted, once you get used to a retina screen, looking at any other laptop display feels lackluster.

I can't use the Chrome browser any longer, because while Chrome has been updated for the retina display, text in Chrome looks considerably lighter than in Safari. I came across a post from a guy who enlarged text in Chrome and Safari, showing how font thickness is less in Chrome.

Aside from the retina display, I also love the solid state drive, all 256 GB of it. That's the same size drive as what my old MacBook Pro had. But with the SSD, everything happens much, much quicker. It used to take forever, just about, to open and close iPhoto with those thousand-plus images I have in it.

Now, just a few seconds. Sweet.

I like how light and slim the 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro is. As I said in my post about why I waited for the 13 inch retina laptop:

I played around with the 15 inch'er several times at an Apple Store in suburban Portland's Bridgeport Village. I liked it, but I couldn't fall in love with it. At the risk of sounding sexist, it was like dating a woman twenty pounds overweight after enjoying the company of someone pleasingly svelte.

Everytime I touched the bigger retina laptop, she (oops) it seemed just too damn large.

The extra real estate to the left and right of the keyboard struck me as excessive. And no matter how I tried to convince myself that I needed a larger screen, I recalled how the 13 inch display I'd used for three years suited me just fine.

So whenever I was tempted to call an Apple Store employee over and say "I want to buy a 15 inch retina MacBook Pro," the words wouldn't leave my mouth no matter how loudly they echoed in my brain. I'd go home, then daily look for Internet gossip about a 13 inch retina MacBook Pro.

l'm glad I waited.

For laptop users like me, who often carry their computer around in a backpack, bigger definitely isn't better. I don't need the power of the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro. And I sure don't want the extra weight and size.

My final praise will be to Apple as a whole, for making the changeover from my old MacBook Pro to my new MacBook Pro so simple. In the old days (particularly my old Windows days), switching to a new computer could be a nightmare.

But when I got my new laptop, all I had to do was connect an Ethernet cable between my old and new computers. (I'd gotten an Ethernet adapter for the Retina machine, which doesn't have built-in Ethernet.)

It took quite a few hours to finish the transfer of my files and applications, six or seven as I recall. After that, whatever I'd been doing on my old MacBook Pro I could do on my new one. There were just a few instances where I had to type in a password, or such.

Apple rocks.

They make great computers, and they have great customer support. Yes, you pay more for an Apple computer. And you get what you pay for: in my case, the best 13 inch laptop in the world, the Retina MacBook Pro.

Land paddling is a lot like stand-up paddling on water. Except, obviously, you're on land. And you don't really paddle, you push a longboard skateboard with a stick.

For me, land paddling transformed longboarding, which basically is skateboarding on a longer board and without the tricks.

Last July I got my first longboard, a Landyachtz Switch. I was learning how to get around on it fine, until I practiced on it two days in a row. The second day I was using my right foot/leg to push my way up a gradual slope when -- ow, ow, ow!!! -- my lower calf suddenly really hurt.

I'd stretched something beyond how it wanted to be stretched. It took a few weeks to feel back to normal.

That re-taught me something I already knew: being in your 60's is a lot different than being in your 20's. Or your teens, which are the ages of most longboarders and skateboarders. So I fired up Google and looked for a better way of getting a longboard to move on level ground or mild uphills.

Which is a stick. I have several. My favorite is Kahuna Creations' Big Stick. Just got the carbon fiber model. Love it. I also have the adjustable and bamboo Big Sticks.

I have several longboards in addition to the Landyachtz Switch, Kahuna Creations' Haka Moko and Norgeboards' Kalai.

Ever since I got the Kalai about a month ago, its been the only board I land paddle on. Bigger really is better, at least for the sort of land paddling I do on rough, uneven, leaf-strewn trails at Salem's Minto Brown Island Park. The Kalai is 60 inches long, a full five feet. By contrast, the Haka Moko is 47 inches and the Switch is 41 inches.

There's more to like about the Kalai than just size.

The trucks (thingies the wheels are attached to which enable a longboard to turn) are spring-loaded Original S10 torsion trucks with Abec 5 bearings. Don't ask me what that means. Heck, I'm a senior citizen longboarder with a whole three months of experience.

All I know is that I feel quite a bit more confident on the Norgeboards Kalai than on the other boards I own.

They're all great longboards. I enjoy land paddling on all three. The Kalai just feels more stable, both when turning and, especially, picking up speed on a downhill stretch. I don't feel the wheels wobbling on a downhill like I did with the Haka Moko and Switch.

Yes, the Kalai is heavier. But I rarely carry it. When I come to an uphill or downhill that is beyond my pushing or riding ability, almost always I push it along with the end of my Big Stick, kicking the Kalai's rear end with my foot from side to side as needed to keep the board rolling in the right direction.

On the slight chance that a prospective buyer of the Kalai reads this who, like me, has a Mini Cooper, here's proof that it fits in the back. Just barely. I carry the Kalai around almost all the time, along with my protective gear bag, the backpack that I wear while land paddling, and the adjustable Big Stick.

Here I am with the Kalai, in a self-timed iPhoto shot. I'm proudly six feet tall, having shrunk only about an inch over the years. Wanted to mention this because the perspective makes me look just a bit taller than the five foot Kalai.

I'm now up to land paddling 5.85 miles at Minto Brown Island Park. My way-cool iPhone Runmeter app gives me precise workout data. Yesterday it took me 1:20 (hour and twenty minutes) to go that far, so the average speed was 4.4 mph.

Here's the Runmeter graph of speed and elevation change. You can see that when I'm moving, my land paddling speed ranges between 2 mph (or less) on uphills and a sizzling 12 mph on a brief downhill run. The elevation change graph shows about 65 feet of up- and down-ness on the trails I take. I start out on a fairly steady uphill stretch, which then becomes fairly level and downhill'ish after a bit over a mile.

I've tried longboarding on city streets and at Salem's urban Riverfront Park. I much prefer the natural setting of Minto Brown Island Park. The trails may be rough, leaf/twig covered in places, and have puddles I need to skate around, but that's a small price to pay for being mostly by myself in a beautiful rural area.

When I wear my tie-dyed sweatshirt I got at Neskowin Beach a few years ago, my persona appears more than a little hippy'ish. Hey, that's fine with me. I came of age in the 60's (the decade), and now I've aged to the same number (as noted above, 64).

I deeply enjoy land paddling on a longboard. The Norgeboard Kalai, like I said, is my favorite. I'm in better shape than I can recall for a long time. Maybe ever. Land paddling for almost six miles is a tremendous aerobic and core workout.

Planting the pole and pushing involves almost every part of my body, from my toes up to my shoulders. I've done a lot of different athletic activities in my life. Land paddling probably is the most satisfying physical activity I've ever done (aside from um..., you can guess).

Thanks, Steve at Bend's Norgeboards, who designed, makes, signs, and ships each personally crafted longboard. I enjoyed meeting you at the Sisters Harvest Faire in October and being able to try out the Kalai at your demo area. Nice to buy local.

November 09, 2012

Even though I have not yet attained to my complete 100% Buddha Nature, I'm compassionate enough (just barely, but enough) to reach out to almost half of American voters and say, echoing my idol Bill Clinton:

I feel your pain.

Not as much as you do, because you're you and I'm me. But I know how badly I would be feeling at the moment if Mitt Romney had been elected president last Tuesday instead of Barack Obama.So I can easily empathize with the disappointment of those who were intensely looking forward to Romney winning.

I was nervous myself for several hours as I checked election returns on my television, iPhone, and computer, obsessively bouncing back and forth between MSNBC, Twitter feed, Daily Kos, NY Times iPhone app, and other information sources.

Waking up on Wednesday morning, I was aware of a fresh feeling: relief.

A new political day had dawned. Four years of not worrying about who the president would be stretched before me. Life seemed steadier, calmer, more certain. I wasn't completely worry-free, but a lot more so than the day before.

What bothers me, though, is that our country has become a place where after a presidential election so many Americans are either elated or depressed. This reflects the polarization of our politics. Moderation is much diminished, mostly owing to conservatives moving much more to the right than liberals have moved to the left.

The two major parties are much further apart now.

So even moderate candidates like Barack Obama (yes, believe it; Obama is a moderate; just ask the many true liberals I know) tend to be looked upon as either heavenly or hellish by their supporters and opponents. I'd much prefer that some sort of in-between realm be the psychological post-election destination for a clear majority of Americans.

Mild pleasure or mild disappointment. Feelings of "Yeah, things will be fine, but not perfect" or "Yeah, things will be not so good, but all right."

Wouldn't it be nice if two-thirds or even three-fourths of voters could say after a presidential election, "I can live with that guy/gal"? This could happen if both parties, Republican and Democratic, gravitate toward the center-right or center-left, eschewing extremism, respecting facts, embracing scientific consensus.

Most Democrats would have little or no problem with this. It's the Republican presidential candidates who have to make their way through very right-wing Tea Party barriers in the GOP primary, which forces them to take positions that put them way out of the moderate mainstream.

Thus while I sincerely do feel the pain of Romney voters, I also feel that the suffering of Republicans is largely self-imposed.

Their candidate lost because he was too extreme.

And Romney became extreme, after a thoroughly moderate term as Massachusetts governor, when he embraced the reality of global warming and a woman's right to choose, having been forced to become someone who he was not in order to appeal to Republican voters who no longer tolerate moderates.

November 07, 2012

Disappointingly, yesterday Oregonians voted down Measure 80, which would have decriminalized marijuana and allowed its sale in state-sponsored stores. But Washington and Colorado approved their own marijuana legalization measures.

Kudos to the Portland Oregonian editorial board for recognizing that marijuana tourism across the Columbia river from this state is going to enlarge Washington's government revenues.

The measure's passage also means something else: The reasons for taking legalization here seriously just got a lot more compelling, which is why Oregon's pot advocates will give voters another go at it before long. And if that's our future, then the Legislature has a role to play, which we'll discuss below.

First, though, consider what Washington's landmark vote means for Oregon at large. Assuming everything goes as planned, Washington's liquor control board will adopt rules by the end of 2013 for the licensing of marijuana producers, processors and retailers. Marijuana stores will proliferate, and people 21 and older will be able to buy up to an ounce at a time. Because Oregonians will be free to buy Washington pot, many will, and they'll drive it right back into Oregon.

And if business booms at Washington's pot shops, as expected? Our neighbor to the north will collect millions of dollars in new "sin" taxes, with much of the money coming from Oregonians who'd be happy to keep their business -- and taxes -- in state if given the opportunity.

I've been wondering, though, what will happen if Washington legalizes marijuana and Oregon doesn't. There's a heck of lot of Oregonians who live within a few hours drive time of the Washington border. And I've heard rumors that quite a few of them use marijuana.

...So far as I can tell -- and my research, of course, has been purely for journalistic blogging purposes -- I-502 legalizes the sale of marijuana to anyone 21 or older who buys it at licensed retail outlets. Not just Washingtonians. Anyone.

...Sure sounds like marijuana tourism could be coming to Washington.

The DUI aspects of I-502 are a bummer to hemp advocates who want to pot-party in the state, but I doubt this would discourage Oregonians from driving up to Washington to purchase an ounce of weed, then driving home to consume it.

This depends on market forces, though. The legal price of marijuana would have to be close to what it can be bought for now, and the quality as good or better. But given these assumptions, why wouldn't Oregonians help out the Washington state budget with some extra tax receipts?

Money that would be leaving Oregon if this state doesn't pass Measure 80, while Washington passes I-502.

Many Oregonians still would be able to buy marijuana legally, just not here. Much of the revenue that would have gone to Oregon state government, $60 million or more according to Measure 80 proponents, would flow to Washington.

Something to think about, Oregon voters. Vote "yes" on Measure 80. Keep Oregon green -- with money that should stay in the state, rather than head into Washington state coffers.

Oregonians are going to keep using marijuana whether or not Measure 80 passes. The only question is whether this state joins Washington in ending the crazy, expensive, irrational prohibition of an herb that is hugely more beneficial than already-legal alcohol.

Measure 80 didn't pass.

But since I-502 did, the Oregonian correctly recognizes that unless our legislature does something, lots of money is going to be legally spent in Washington marijuana stores that could be financing much-needed government services right here in Oregon.

Who: Brian Hines, 64, Salem; 6 feet, 180 pounds. Hines is a writer who retired from the health planning and policy field. He has a daughter and a granddaughter. He and his wife of 22 years, Laurel, live on acreage in the country with room to roam.

Workout: About three months ago Hines took up longboarding, which he says is "basically skateboarding without the tricks. Or minimal tricks. Getting from here to there and having fun along the way is what longboarding is all about." Then he discovered stand-up paddling on a longboard and a passion was born. He says he's hooked. He "landpaddles" twice a week for 45 to 60 minutes, or three to four miles.

...Feedback: He says of paddling his longboard: "I'm hugely impressed with the great exercise this is. It's aerobic and a tremendous core workout. Having done this regularly for a month or so, I can say that I've never felt in better shape. Emotionally and psychologically it suits me very well. There's just enough risk to keep my attention focused but not so much as to cause anxiety. I wear knee and elbow pads, padded shorts, hand guards and a helmet." Hines says he has none of the aches and pains that many people in their 60s complain of. He believes if you do what you love you don't get as tired. "It's like being 10 years old again; just you and a pole pushing yourself along. It uses every part of your body."

Ms. Dow said more fascinating stuff about me, so you should read the entire article if you're as interested in me as I am. Also consider going to the Oregonian webs site and commenting on the article, because so far I'm the only one who has left a comment and said nice things about me.

After our phone interview, Nancy invited me to let her know if there was anything I wanted to add or retract. I spent some time pondering what I'd told her.

I was concerned about a statement that went like this: "I remember reading a story in Parade magazine, or wherever, about a Marine serving in Iraq. He said that everybody needs something in their life that can kill them. I agree. Not necessarily kill physically; it could be psychologically. And it doesn't have to be kill; it just needs to be something risky."

The whole "kill" thing seemed rather dark. So I labored over a few sentences that better expressed how I feel about the riskiness of longboarding.

A risky activity jolts me into seeing every moment as infinitely precious. The attention needed for longboarding casts me into a present-focused awareness where I can smile at the finitude of life. The richness of the moments I'm enjoying makes their inevitable end a better bargain with death.

Wow. Re-reading those words, they seem even darker than what I said orginally. Better suited for a blog post, than for a breezy My Workout article in the Living section of the Oregonian. But they're true.

I sent the Oregonian a couple of photos. They didn't use the photo which showed me with my new favorite longboard, the bamboo 60 inch Norgeboard Kalai. Norgeboards are made in Bend, Oregon by Steve Bangsund. Fairly soon I'll write a review of the Kalai, describing what I like about it.

Don't get me wrong. The Kahuna Creations 47 inch Haka Moko longboard shown in the other photo also is a highly enjoyable board. But like they say, bigger (sometimes) is better.

Lastly, my Big Stick longboard outing yesterday was a new distance record for me at Minto Brown Island Park: 5.75 miles. Not counting stops for water and photo taking, it took me about 70 minutes. Not bad, for a senior citizen longboarding on rough leaf-strewn trails with quite a few ups and downs.

[I use Runmeter on my iPhone to keep track of my workouts. Great app.]

The choice between Romney and Obama, along with the choice between Republicans and Democrats generally, indeed involves two ways of how we gain an understanding about reality -- the province of epistemology.

Nate Silver is a proud member of the knowledge/facts/science community.

So am I. So is Obama, by and large. Romney and most Republicans running for office at the national level are part of the feeling/fantasy/religion community.

Thus when ballots are counted tomorrow, voters not only will be electing candidates, they'll be choosing a worldview that will be a basis for guiding our country during the next four years. Or longer.

I'm confident that Obama and the Democrats will come out on top, in large part because I've been closely following Silver's sophisticated projections of election outcomes. At the moment he gives Obama a 92% chance of winning. That's a huge difference from all the blather about the election being a toss-up.

It isn't.

Not according to the polls, analyzed by Silver in detail. When Silver expresses a judgment about who is going to be elected president, he has facts, reasons, and logic to back him up.

Most other "talking heads" on television and radio are just making stuff up. We've been hearing about Mittmentum for weeks, fact-free opinionating about how Romney caught up to Obama after the first debate and now is cruising to a win.

During those same weeks, Nate Silver has been showing that Obama has been enjoying a steady rise in state-level/battleground polling. Recently national polls have become more closely aligned with this Obamentum.

I very much want Obama to win tomorrow. I also want Silver's epistemological perspective as shared on Five Thirty Eight to win. Which it will, if Obama gets an electoral college win close to the 315 (O) - 223 (R) split Silver is projecting.

That would be a giant Obama victory. And also a victory for the reality-based community.

The United States can't solve its problems if the Republican party is in control. Sadly, modern day conservatives are tenaciously anti-science, anti-facts, and pro-religious fantasizing. I know this both from observing national political goings-on, and also seeing how right-wing commenters on my blog posts think.

In short, poorly.

When facts about climate change, Chrysler adding jobs in this country, the Benghazi attack, or other issues are pointed out to them, their reaction is Doesn't matter. Amazing. Neuroscience knows that emotions play a big role in how we think about problems, but we humans should be able to integrate facts into our viewpoints a heck of a lot better than right-wingers do these days.

On November 6 I'm hopeful that Americans will have re-elected President Obama, and also chosen which side of the epistemological divide they want our nation's leaders to operate from. The side of...

Facts. Reason. Science. Openness. Tolerance.

Mitt Romney has been astoundingly dishonest. The Washington Post got it right when they said his one consistency has been a contempt for the electorate. That's what happens when a candidate, indeed the entire Republican party, doesn't respect objective truth or fact-based reality.

Yes, we're at an epistemological watershed. Tomorrow we'll know which way the nation's knowledge drop flows.

Update: just came across "The Real Loser:Truth" by history professor Kevin Kruse. Excellent essay. Excerpt:

PolitiFact has chronicled 19 “pants on fire” lies by Mr. Romney and 7 by Mr. Obama since 2007, but Mr. Romney’s whoppers have been qualitatively far worse: the “apology tour,” the “government takeover of health care,” the “$4,000 tax hike on middle class families,” the gutting of welfare-to-work rules, the shipment by Chrysler of jobs from Ohio to China. Said one of his pollsters, Neil Newhouse, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”

To be sure, the Obama campaign has certainly had its own share of dissembling and distortion, including about Mr. Romney’s positions on abortion and foreign aid. But nothing in it — or in past campaigns, for that matter — has equaled the efforts of the Romney campaign in this realm. Its fundamental disdain for facts is something wholly new.

The voters, of course, may well recoil against these cynical manipulations at the polls. But win or lose, the Romney campaign has placed a big and historic bet on the proposition that facts can be ignored, more or less, with impunity.

November 03, 2012

Great blog post title, if I say so myself. Which, naturally, I did, this being my blog. It's even accurate!

Exclamation marks are sprouting because I'm excited about being quoted in the November 2012 AARP Bulletin story,"To Test or Not to Test?," about whether men should get a PSA test that screens for prostate cancer.

The article by Chris Woolston is well worth reading in its entirety. But if you're only interested in the good parts, a.k.a. the paragraphs where my name is mentioned, I'll make it easy for you.

Like millions of American men, Brian Hines, 64, has a yearly ritual. Every fall, the Salem, Ore., resident has his blood checked for PSA (prostate-specific antigen), a protein that can be an early warning sign of prostate cancer. So far his numbers have always been low, generally a sign that his prostate is healthy and cancer-free.

But now, Hines says he might skip the test because it may do nothing more than "buy you a ticket for the treatment merry-go-round."

...The benefits of PSA tests may be murky, but the risks are undeniable. Brian Hines is right: A positive PSA test can be a ticket to treatment. It often starts with a needle biopsy, a procedure in which a doctor inserts a needle -- usually through the wall of the rectum -- to remove tissue samples from the prostate. The procedure is uncomfortable and can cause bleeding and infection. If the biopsy confirms cancer, the next step is often radiation or surgical removal of the prostate, a serious operation that can leave a man facing impotence, incontinence, or both.

Yikes.

Now I'm really leaning toward not getting a PSA test at my annual physical, which is coming up next week. Last year I blogged about deciding to get the test even after hearing that the United States Preventive Services Task Force had recommended against it, in most cases.

Woolston read that post, then interviewed me by phone about my personal to test or not to test? feelings.

I told him that if a man has a good family physician, like I do, who will discuss with him the consequences of follow-up diagnosis/treatment if a PSA test is elevated, and not pressure him into getting on that "treatment merry-go-round," then there seems to be little harm in getting a PSA test.

After all, the vast majority of PSA tests are negative.

So the likelihood is that a man will be reassured by a test that he doesn't have prostate cancer. Is that reassurance worth the anxiety of getting a positive PSA test result? Or the prospect of impotence and/or incontinence if, somehow, he finds himself on that treatment merry-go-round?

In the exam room I told my doctor, "The main argument against getting a PSA test seems to be that a positive result often leads to unnecessary treatment, with nasty side effects (impotence, incontinence). However, this implies that patients are helpless to resist the Medical Treatment Machine, which sucks them in against their will."

So I thought, why not?

A positive test result would worry me, but not nearly so much as it would have before I learned that 80% of positive PSA results are false. Thus usually it makes sense to take a positive result lightly, or even to ignore it completely.

Again, I realized that I could either ignore the PSA test by not getting one, or I could get the test and then ignore the results. (Which turned out to be negative, by the way.) I trusted that my doctor and I could deal with a positive result wisely -- not rushing into a biopsy or surgery without a very good reason.

Makes sense.

However, after reading the AARP Bulletin article, I'm now strongly leaning toward not getting the test when my doctor asks me about it next week. If solid research shows that the benefits of the PSA test aren't worth the costs (not monetary, but health-related), then what's the point in having the test done?

Ignorance can be bliss, since the article points out that "97 percent of men die from something other than prostate cancer, which means any given man is far more likely to die with the disease than from it." This seems to be an instance where treatment is worse than the disease.

Not always, of course, but generally.

Each man has to weigh for himself the pros and cons of getting a PSA test, along with his/her doctor. I feel good that I was able to help educate the 22 million or so potential readers of the AARP Bulletin about this difficult decision.

Cancer is shitty. But so is getting unnecessary diagnostic tests and treatment with nasty side effects.

November 01, 2012

There's good opinion/editorial writing, and there's poor opinion/editorial writing. Our (sadly) one and only local daily newspaper, Gannett's Salem Statesman Journal, falls into the "poor" category.

The paper's endorsement of Mitt Romney yesterday offered a prime example of why the editorial section should be held up before journalism students as an example of how not to write an opinion piece.

Understand: I enjoy reading well-reasoned, thoughtful, factual opinions by conservative columnists whom I usually disagree with politically. David Brooks is one. I can follow his train of thought and appreciate how he came to his point of view even if it strikes me as ill-advised.

However the Statesman Journal, under the leadership of editorial page editor Dick Hughes, notoriously starts and ends its opinion pieces with unfounded assertions -- facts, logic, and reason nowhere to be seen in the middle.

Back in 2007 some fellow land use advocates and I met with Hughes after the Statesman Journal had published an editorial opposing the passage of Measure 49, which restored vital protections to Oregon's farm and forest land.

Shockingly, Hughes angrily jumped up and started to leave the coffee shop where we were conversing. He was angry, apparently offended that someone was pointing out facts and assertions that he'd gotten wrong. "This is just opinion!" he said.

Wow.

I'd always thought newspaper endorsements were supposed to reflect more than just one person's subjective feelings. Figuring that this thought was more right than wrong, I proved myself correct by checking out ethical codes of conduct for editorial writers.

The Romney endorsement strikes me as coming from the same mold: virtually free of important substantive facts; personal opinions unsupported by fair conclusions concerning how those absent facts relate to the public good.

Wouldn't you think that a newspaper's endorsement of a presidential candidate would refer to the candidate's positions on crucial issues, and why those positions are better than what his/her opponent wants to do?

I sure did.

So it was disturbing to see that the Statesman Journal told us nothing, zilch, nada, about where Romney wants to lead the country. The only substantive policy noted in the editorial was Obamacare, which the editorial board admits it likes "in concept" (whatever that means). And which Romney has vowed to repeal.

Thus we didn't get any mention of how these Romney goals relate to the public good of Oregonians:

-- Abolishing efforts to reduce carbon emissions and other air pollutants causing both global warming and thousands of premature deaths.

-- Reducing tax rates across the board, including a continuation of Bush's tax breaks for the very wealthy, a $6 trillion or so cost, plus increasing military spending by $2 trillion, producing a $8 trillion hole in the federal budget prior to any efforts to decrease the already high current deficit.

-- Changing Medicare to a voucher program and repealing "Obamacare" benefits that almost certainly will increase out-of-pocket costs to senior citizens.

-- Markedly slashing federal social programs, and indeeed virtually every program other than the Defense Department (which hasn't asked for the $2 trillion Romney wants to lavish on it).

-- Overturning Roe v. Wade, thereby making abortion illegal in many or most states, along with allowing employers to decide whether they want to include contraception coverage in their health plans.

-- Permitting much increased oil and gas drilling on public lands, along with off-shore areas; gutting, if not eliminating, the Environmental Protection Agency.

I could go on. But I won't.

You get the idea of how cowardly the Statesman Journal editorial board was in not addressing any of Romney's specific policy proposals. I say "cowardly" because it's easy to take a political stand without proclaiming what, exactly, you are committed to.

The Statesman Journal said it admires Romney's flip-flopping. Sure, birds of a feather flock together. Gutless panderers without firm ethical convictions like each other.

Amazingly, in a related editorial the Statesman Journal editorial board said that its Romney endorsement shouldn't be used to justify "impressions of our editorial stance throughout the year." Huh? Of course it does.

Just look at the list of policies I listed above that the Statesman Journal has endorsed, given its thumbs-up to a candidate who supports those policies. Yes, the editorial contained some blather about how we don't agree with all of Romney's positions.

Well, the editorial board must agree with most of them, or they wouldn't have endorsed Romney.

So we have to assume that among more tax cuts for the wealthy, slashing social programs, making Medicare into a voucher program, doing away with environmental protections, turning over much more private land to the oil and gas industry, undoing increased mileage requirements for American cars, regulating Wall Street more strictly, and overturning Roe v. Wade, the Salem Statesman Journal editorial board is in favor of most of these.

Except it won't say so, because it is a gutless editorial board which wanted to endorse Romney without endorsing any of Romney's far-right positions.